updated 04:15 pm EDT, Thu March 15, 2012

Amazon celebrates Appstore's first birthday

The Amazon Appstore is having its first birthday party and, to celebrate, Amazon has put many of the software titles it offers on sale. The weeklong sale applies to the Android apps for devices such as the Kindle Fire, other tablets, and smartphones that can access the service. The service has grown from just 4,000 apps to more than 31,000 over the course of the year.

Amazon will drop the prices of popular apps by at least 50 percent, with new sales arriving daily throughout the week. On the first day, Thursday, Plants vs. Zombies has been slashed by $2, or 67 percent. Otherwise, Amazon said day two will see two popular apps go one sale, day three will have three apps priced down, and so on.

Other apps that will go on sale during the week include Fruit Ninja, Wolfram Alpha, Splashtop Remote Desktop, Dr. Seuss's The Shape of Me and Other Stuff, TuneIn Radio Pro, Tetris, Pac-Man, The Lost City, Monopoly, AccuWeather Platinum, and others.

A Kindle Fire giveaway is also started on Thursday and runs until March 31.